1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to information recording apparatuses, and more particularly to an information recording apparatus for recording information in a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the growing awareness for environmental protection and recycling in recent years, attention is being focused on a rewritable medium capable of repeatedly recording and erasing information. An example of the rewritable medium is a thermosensitive recording medium comprising a substrate that is coated with a leuco dye and an oxidizing substance in order to form a recording layer thereon having thermal reversibility. Application of appropriate heat can cause the recording layer to relatively exhibit or lose a color. Because a thermal printer required for recording information in such a rewritable medium has a relatively simple structure and is easy to maintain, the thermal printer is expected to increase its share, possibly replacing the laser printers based on the Carlson process.
In the above thermal printer, generally, information is first erased with an erasing unit while the rewritable medium is moved on conveyance rollers, and new information is then recorded with a recording unit, as described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2002-234201, which discloses a recording apparatus.
The present inventors have considered the viability of putting a novel thermal printer in the market in which the recording unit and the erasing unit are arranged vertically in order to allow a full-front operation by a user. An analysis indicated that in this type of a thermal printer, a lifter or the like equipped with a lifting tray could be advantageously employed to convey a rewritable medium from the erasing unit to the recording unit.
However, conveyance using a lifter is associated with a possible problem of skew during recording of information, which may be caused when the rewritable medium from which information has been erased is placed on the lifting tray in an inclined manner with respect to the recording unit for one reason or another. Because the rewritable medium is used over and over, the medium may become curled after a repeated use, thus increasing the frequency and degree of skew during recording.